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GNU C Library 2.16 Brings Many Features (GLIBC)

Phoronix: GNU C Library 2.16 Brings Many Features (GLIBC)

Version 2.16 of glibc, the GNU C Library, was released on Saturday afternoon. This update to the de facto C library for GNU/Linux systems brings many new features. There's x32 and ISO C11 support along with performance optimizations...

I am now more curious about alternative libc-based distros. Musl libc seems to be moving along nicely and I think there is a gentoo variant based on uClibc.

Do you have any insight on the respective strengths of these c libs (other than most likely being smaller and having less baggage) ? It's always been a bit of a jungle for me thus resulting in me staying on the beaten path, maybe I'm missing out on something.

Do you have any insight on the respective strengths of these c libs (other than most likely being smaller and having less baggage) ? It's always been a bit of a jungle for me thus resulting in me staying on the beaten path, maybe I'm missing out on something.

For static linking, I think musl libc got lots of good things going for it. Especially that it is permissively licensed while still being far more complete than the Android bionic libc, so one does not have to worry about license conflicts in static binaries.
For the base system, having static linking is pretty good (that is how the musl libc "sabotage linux" does it).

A(nother?) musl user here...
Most alternate libc versions are smaller/lighter than glibc.
musl right now (0.9.2) has partial LSB ABI support, which is a subset of glibc ABI. Most other alternate libcs don't have an officially stable ABI.
Most users build musl with gcc, but I'm aware of folks using pcc, tcc, and Clang; in fact, ellcc is currently migrating from "libecc" (based on netbsd libc) to musl, and I heard from Rich Pennigton (a week or two ago, on #musl) that a musl-based release should happen in a month or so.
Not sure how close to the timeline it will happen, but it "should be soon".

There's also a musl Gentoo port/overlay that's been started (mentioned on the musl mailinglist), though AFAICT it may not be usable or public yet.

Re musl - it does cut the bloat, but it also cuts any performance optimizations (no ASM in musl, IIRC) as well as many used functions and behaviors that aren't quite standard, but are supported by glibc and used in the real world.